This invention is in the field of hair grooming accessories. In this field one desired look is to possess straight and styled hair, however that often becomes an overwhelming task when first presented with a head of curly or bristly hair. The effects of compression and heat application to straighten this type of hair are well known, and have been incorporated in a variety of prior grooming accessories.
Consider the earlier electrically heated teeth on combs shown in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,760,821 and 4,702,265 issued to W. T. Weddington, U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,034,859 issued to G. Anderson, U.S. Pat. No. 1,536,669 issued to C. Grant, U.S. Pat. No. 2,590,447 issued to S. R. Nord, Jr., et al. Other types of heated combs and pressing devices are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,523,461 issued to J. Swan; U.S. Pat. No. 1,861,040 issued to J. E. B. Williams; U.S. Pat. No. 2,406,490 issued to D. A. Day; U.S. Pat. No. 2,545,885 issued to H. F. Jackson; U.S. Pat. No. 2,598,330 issued to E. Wilson; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,065,759 issued to F. Lewis.
Those apparatus fall within the chief categories of either the hinged opposing-tong ‘flatiron’ design, or alternatively, the pick-like ‘pressing comb’ design. Each category presents several disadvantages.
For instance, the amount of hair captured by flatirons widely varies, thus capturing large volume hair locks that absorb heat and pressure unevenly through the bulk by way of the outer strands receiving more than the inner strands. Distribution of heat and pressure is distributed more evenly when smaller locks of hair are captured, but that increased the overall time and effort required to treat the full head of hair.
And pressing combs, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,742,964 to Newbern and U.S. Pat. No. 4,126,143 to Schroeder, have a score of fixed teeth acting to harvest a score of small-volume locks, however it is difficult, if not impossible to exert even pressure or heat on the harvested hair. The heat and compression is exerted onto the hair locks by skillfully and carefully maneuvering and manipulating the comb. There are a limited number of strokes the comb's user may employ that are limited within the range of drawing hair sideways through the comb teeth, to twisting it—much in the way spaghetti stays on a fork after twirling it onto the fork tines.
Both categories of combs necessarily incur repetitive strokes that typically repeat treatment on post-treated strands. What is more, each category type lacks the ability to treat hair strands close to their root.